John D. Barnhart

Being an inconsequential centennial-era history of the state during the Civil War. The book is competently written, and, like the Curate's Egg, is 'very good in spots'. In this case, as in so many books of this ilk, the great flaw is that the book was obviously commissioned to be short, and he wastes his precious space on such tangents as a running, elementary-school level synopsis of the course of the war and even less relevant passages on soldier life, on which, of course, entire books have been written. Since the Hoosier Civil War was interesting, with several Confederate raids and a vigorous opposition movement, this is all quite unfortunate.… (mer)